Retired Judge Dennis Waldron this morning delayed the sentencing of Telly Hankton for one week after his lawyers filed a motion requested a retrial. Hankton faces a mandatory life sentence after being convicted of second-degree murder in the 2008 shooting death of Darnell Stewart.

Telly Hankton

Waldron denied the motion for a new trial, but gave defense attorney Robert Glass a week to file an appeal.

By a 10-2 vote, a jury found last month that Hankton was guilty in the brazen killing of Stewart on South Claiborne Avenue on the night of May 13, 2008. Police said Hankton and his cousin, Andre Hankton, executed Stewart in retribution for Stewart's alleged killing of another of Hankton's cousins, George "Cup" Hankton.

According to police, Andre Hankton rammed his Ford Mustang into Stewart, sending him flying. Telly Hankton, a passenger in the car during a chase up and down South Claiborne, then walked up and fired 11 bullets at him, including four fatal shots to the face, the jury found.

A jury could not agree on a verdict in Hankton's first trial in June, during which a woman, Danielle Hampton, testified that she was having drinks with Hankton when police say Stewart was murdered.

Hampton, along with three others, has since been indicted in an alleged perjury conspiracy related to the alibi testimony in that trial.

Andre Hankton, 33, still faces trial in Stewart's death. His case was split off because Glass argued that it was clear that Andre Hankton drove the Mustang. The only doubt, Glass said, was with the identity of the shooter.

Telly Hankton, 35, also is scheduled for trial in the 2009 killing of Jessie "TuTu" Reed while Hankton was out on $1 million bond in Stewart's killing. Police have said the murder of Reed was also in retribution for the killing of Cup Hankton.

A firm date for a trial in that case has not been set.

Hankton appeared in orange jail scrubs and shackles for the hearing Wednesday. Police have called him one of the city's most dangerous men. His Sept. 23 conviction spawned even more notoriety, along with a rap song, "Free Telly Hankton," complaining about the actions of District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro's office in the case.